PDF《Reader Interpretations》

s (that is, URF1, URF2, URF3, and URF4, hereafter referred to as ND1, ND2, ND3, ND4) encode subunits of complex I. This is a large complex that also contains many subunits synthesized in the cytoplasm. www.letpub.com

11 Reader Expectations for the Structure of Scientific Writing Why is this paragraph hard to read? The technical vocabulary? Maybe it requires specialized background knowledge? Knowing a little about the subject matter does NOT clear up all the confusion The reader is hindered by MORE than just the scientific jargon Here is how we can fix these problems… www.letpub.com

12 Subject-Verb Separation www.letpub.com

13 Subject-Verb Separation ? Look again at the first sentence of the passage The smallest of the URF'

s (URFA6L), a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit

6 gene has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit

8 gene. ? There are structural problems here;

info is not presented where readers need and expect to find it. www.letpub.com

14 Subject-Verb Separation Readers expect a grammatical subject to be followed immediately by the verb. A stronger revision of our example text is: The smallest of the URF'

s (URFA6L) has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit

8 gene. Anything of length that intervenes between subject and verb is read as an interruption, and therefore as something of lesser importance The reader'

s expectation stems from a pressing need for syntactic resolution, fulfilled only by the arrival of the verb Each unit of discourse is expected to serve a single function. www.letpub.com

15 The Stress Position www.letpub.com

16 The Stress Position It is a linguistic commonplace that readers emphasize the material that arrives at the END of a sentence Writers can take advantage of this. As a result, the chances greatly increase that reader and writer will perceive the same material as being worthy of primary emphasis The structure of the sentence thus helps persuade the reader of the relative values of the sentence'

s contents www.letpub.com

17 The Stress Position Long sentences increase chances the reader won'

t interpret the text as the writer intended The stress position should coincide with the moment of syntactic closure Secondary stress positions can be formed using correct punctuation www.letpub.com

18 Let'

s Review… We have now discovered

3 rhetorical principles based on reader expectations: First: grammatical subjects should be followed as soon as possible by their verbs Second: every unit of discourse, no matter the size, should serve a single function or make a single point Third: info intended to be emphasized should appear at points of syntactic closure www.letpub.com

19 Let'

s Review… Note the subject-verb separation in the 62-word third sentence of the original passage: Recently, however, immunoprecipitation experiments with antibodies to purified, rotenone-sensitive NADH- ubiquinone oxido-reductase [hereafter referred to as respiratory chain NADH dehydrogenase or complex I] from bovine heart, as well as enzyme fractionation studies, have indicated that six human URF'

s (that is, URF1, URF2, URF3, URF4, URF4L, and URF5, hereafter referred to as ND1, ND2, ND3, ND4, ND4L and ND5) encode subunits of complex I. What'

s wrong here? www.letpub.com

20 Let'

s Review… When is a sentence too long? A sentence is too long when it has more viable candidates for stress positions than there are stress positions available No one should have to work hard to unearth the important content of a single passage! www.letpub.com